MEXICO CITY Pushingthe Limits
"Corruption was for so many years so intricate a part of the system
that Mexicans did not feel particularly offended by it," Aguilar said. "It
is entrenched in traditions and structures. It is the most democratic thing
of our system. You can even have influence as a humble man in a little
town if you know the judge. So corruption gives everybody access."
But revelations that the administration of Carlos Salinas de Gortari,
president from 1988 to 1994, siphoned tens of millions of dollars out of the
treasury have shocked the nation, and Aguilar thinks the people are ready
to change. Even cops on the beat have demanded relief from a system in
which they're expected to take bribes and pay off supervisors. During one
protest a policeman who was penalized for not collecting bribes persuaded
Second choice for the
top job, President
Ernesto Zedillo Ponce
de Le6n soldiers
through his term.
Charismatic Luis
Donaldo Colosio
Murrieta, candidate of
the ruling Institutional
Revolutionary Party
(PRI), seemed des
tined to win the 1994
presidential election
until he was slain at a
Tijuana rally. Since
then Zedillo, a U.S.
educated economist,
has struggled to lead
the country through a
brutal peso devalua
tion, disclosure of
massive corruption in
the administration of
Carlos Salinas de
Gortari, and rumors
that a PRI faction had
Colosio killed.
his friends to tie him to a cross in the middle of a busy intersection. The
man hung by his wrists for six hours.
But to fight corruption here is to risk your life. A police chief investi
gating corruption in Tijuana was gunned down last year. Another was
poisoned in Mexico City. In 1984 Aguilar was kidnapped and beaten
by thugs trying to silence him. Recently aides outside a building where
he was investigating suspicious records were attacked and briefly
kidnapped. Was it just a robbery or a threat? He didn't know.
Aguilar gathered the evidence on the table and put it into a small, bat
tered satchel. He went downstairs. The air was warm, and the place was
full of voices and music. Aguilar locked the door behind him and stepped
into the street, a slight man in a dark suit carrying a bag full of danger, as
optimistic in his complex way as the map salesman was in his simplicity.
I found it hard to imagine that this one man could make a real differ
ence, but Mexico City's very turmoil may make change possible. If there is
hope for this grand and troubled old city, though, surely it's in the charac
ter of the people themselves, people with the determination of Aguilar and
the family vitality of Noemi Munioz L6pez and the anger of the cop who
hung from the cross to demand his own right to honesty-all staking their
lives on inventing a better future.
NationalGeographic, August 1996